The Armed Republic of Lacoba is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its public floggings, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The cynical population of 985 million Lacobans are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The large, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Education, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 58.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but underdeveloped Lacoban economy, worth 37.2 trillion Plats a year, is led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Tourism, and Furniture Restoration. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 37,816 Plats, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The nation's official head of religious affairs is an atheist, courtrooms can be a little sketchy, euthanasia is legal, and Leader has just been declared ruler of Lacoba in an international press conference. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Lacoba's national animal is the bull.

Lacoba is ranked 281,506^th in the world and 5,967^th in The North Pacific for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -12.8 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.